Women Don Trousers in Protest December 7, 2001 11:16 am EST

ANKARA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Turkish female civil servants wore trousers to work on Friday to protest against a dress code ordering women in the public sector to wear skirts.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit was drawn into the simmering dispute. "I have until now been unable to divine why there would be objections to women in trousers," he told a news conference.

Government rules bar women wearing trousers to such workplaces as schoolrooms, government buildings and post offices, said a spokesman at the teachers' union, part of the Public Sector Workers Union organizing the protest.

"This protest aims at changing rules discriminating against one part of society," the union official said. "Some people look better in trousers. Some people's work requires them to wear trousers. It's a natural thing to want to wear trousers."

Overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, seeking to meet European Union standards, overhauled its civil code last month to eradicate many inequalities between men and women before the law.

"The entire issue is sexism," said Mujgan Arpat of the Turkey-based Human Rights Association. Female lawmakers wearing trousers to parliament have been blocked from voting.

"Women can make their own decision on what to wear to work. This protest is an effort to bring our society into the modern age," she said.

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2001